Topic: Why I'm an atheist - page 80. (Read 89022 times)

That sounds very extreme. I am sure it is from Zen Buddhism. Could you tell me this: How can you know that Zen Buddhism is not an extreme philosophy? I am inclined to doubt the idea that GOD wants man to use his mind in order to NOT think. If the "purported self" is the one which is always rational then the true self can never be in harmony with the rational truth that man can understand, so I would call it a false self.

Shan Yu said, "Live with a man 40 years. Share his house, his meals. Speak on every subject. Then tie him up, and hold him over the volcano's edge. And on that day, you will finally meet the man."

Sir, what is the true self? How can I identify my true self?

The demographics of atheism and religiosity have some puzzling issues.

The differences between Europe and the US, countries with similar economic development are striking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism#Europe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism#United_States

There seems to be a trend on the United States for an increase of non-religious people, but religiosity on the United States is way over the one on Europe.

There are more than one explanation:

1) State religions on Europe reduced competition and allowed some dominant churches to keep defending absurd positions.

2) There was on European eastern countries a state policy against religion under communism (still today, eastern Germany is the most atheist region on the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism#Germany).

But many of European churches' ideas are not more crazy than the American ones. And some of the top atheist countries (like the Scandinavians) never had any state police against religion.

So, the reasons are not obvious.

Anyway, the numbers are not completely favorable to atheism. Basically, atheist have much lower birth rates than religious people.

Some of the reasons for this low birth rate are cultural. Statistics say that atheist have higher levels of education (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/05/7-facts-about-atheists/). Well, around the world, educated people seem to be actively investing on their own extinction.

Some other are economical. Atheism is predominant on developed countries, where there are (were?) strong social security systems. Having kids is a bad deal, because they are expensive (no more child work) and they aren't needed to assure patrimonial security on old age.

Of course, since social security is going to explode because of these low birth rates and longer life expectation, this will change soon.

Some other reasons are religious: religious people do take seriously the command to multiply themselves.

All individuals are individual "societies" of many parts.   

Death is as natural as birth/life, there is no need to hope or wish it away. The reason why humans try to avoid death is again because eternity is a scary thing if you face it while not being complete. Death is only natural and non-scary when you have closure in all aspects of your life at the time of your passing. Closure is natural and automatic in the animal realm. Unfortunately, this is not the case for humans.
Living in society means every human has a true self and a purported self. The purported self is driven by reason and will overrule and overwhelm the true self 100% of the time. The deeper the grip of the purported self, the more unresolved loose ends remain in one's life. This is because the purported self prioritizes existence in society over existence as a living being.

People basically spend their lives embroiled in the superficial webs of society while constantly keeping their true selves in check. It's a little like spending your whole life having fun and not doing any homework assigned to your true self. And if death is the final exam, I'm sure you can imagine why most would want to postpone it for as long as they can  

What percentage of people who swim in the ocean get bitten or killed by sharks? Do they all? No, of course not.

You and your BS all the time.

While this is in general true, it is much more favorable to believe in something that is truth. For example, the child's ball bounces into the street. The child goes after the ball. The child believes that there aren't any cars coming. We hope the child believes the truth, even if he doesn't know the truth.

When you boil it down, religion and science are one and the same thing, just different schools of thought stemming from the same source. They both start with awareness. Awareness unavoidably leads to belief, there is no other path. Becoming aware of eternity is crushing, to keep from being overwhelmed by its sheer awesomeness, a belief system is crucial. It doesn't matter what that belief is whether hard facts/experiences or a supreme being or anything else. The two are inseparable, you cannot be aware and not believe in anything. The reverse is equally true.

As my magic 8-ball would say...

The signs point to no

Why u dont believe god is exist?
I believe god, and it make my life peace

1) The guy I posted a picture of... I already posted his name and picture above... he applied CS to his face and it turned blue... permanently
2) There is no "proper way to prepare CS"... CS isn't really even a thing... it's simply small particles of silver floating in water (aka snake oil)
3) Edgar Cayce did not advise people to drink CS... he sold a machine which would ionize the particles directly into your bloodstream
4) The layman would not know the difference between ionized particles or non-ionized... I doubt you even understand the difference, so quit giving medical advice to people

This is not the topic... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... please stop spreading harmful medical advice

Please either find ONE person who prepared CS properly and became blue (permanently), OR stay on topic...

Please do not take medical advice from an idiot on the internet



The topic is atheism... what do Edgar Cayce or Allen Watts have to do with atheism?

Speak for yourself! You could stay on topic and address the above (atheism and health, or the mathematical impossibility of evolution), but you refused. You could find ONE person who prepared CS properly and became blue, but you will not even do that... All you did was change the topic from atheism to "be careful, you could turn blue".